What’s the next step in your career? If it’s landing a better job, you need to start growing your network to make sure that when the ideal position opens up, you're the first name that comes to mind. If you aspire to be your own boss or run a business, you need to meet the right people to help you, such as cofounders or marketing gurus. If you have no idea what your dream career path is, maybe it’s time to start meeting other interesting professionals and get inspired by their trajectories. No matter where you see yourself in five years, one thing is clear: you will need help and inspiration from other professionals to get there. Luckily for you, there is an easy way to start making the right connections for your career.

Shapr is a free app that makes networking simple. It connects people based on their interests, skills, and professional goals, facilitating useful conversations with potential mentors, future colleagues, and collaborators.

The way the app works is deceptively easy. Every day, members of the Shapr community are algorithmically matched with a few relevant people who share their interests or career paths. Then, you can swipe to either connect or pass. If you connect, Shapr will initiate a chat, encouraging you and your new connection to meet up for lunch or coffee. It’s simple, fast and efficient, and you can build a meaningful network in a few swipes a day.

“This app is a game changer,” says Sarah Yuro, an entrepreneur based in Atlanta. Read the rest

All of us at Boing Boing use the hell out of our Amazon Prime memberships to get free two-day shipping on most stuff along with digital benefits like streaming shows, movies, and music. If you don't already have an Amazon Prime membership, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial today and support Boing Boing at the same time! For each qualifying Amazon Prime trial signup, Boing Boing will receive a few bucks that will help us continue bringing you the weird, wonderful, and important news of the day. This benefit ends, for us anyway, at 3 AM ET on Wednesday, July 12. We appreciate your support!

Sign up for a free Amazon Prime Membership Trial and support Boing Boing!

(And if you do try it but don't like it, here's how to turn it off before it automatically converts to a paid membership at the end of the trial period.) Read the rest

Boing Boing welcomes our new sponsor Hydrosys!

Having great success keeping that fern in the corner of your apartment alive? Thinking you might want to step up your gardening game, but have no outdoor space? Afraid your neighbors might object to what you are growing in those buckets on your deck? Relax. Things just got a whole lot easier...

Growing things at home is fun, safe, and doesn't have to be complicated! Hydrosys hydro- and aeroponic kits can help you become a master indoor farmer with ease! Ten or fifteen years ago it was enough to brew your own beer, now if you want to be cool you probably need to cultivate your own hops.

Hydrosys stocks and sells, everything you might need to start growing anything you could possibly imagine, like really almost anything... maybe tomatoes? Or some basil? Perhaps you may even grow some mandrake root!

Small home kits can throw off a bounty of salad fixings, flowers or other things that might entertain your guests. I am considering growing a crop of wheat and baking my own bread.

Seriously, Hydrosys has an incredible selection of gear for whatever your needs may be. If you are planning a small tabletop hydroponic selection of spices, or want to start your own cartel in your garage, Hydosys has you covered. They sell everything, even media and nutrients, irrigation systems, and seedling nurseries, Hydrosys is your online any-kind-of-plant you wanna grow hydro- and aeroponic superstore.

Based in merry old London Town, in the UK, Hydrosys ships from a warehouse in beautiful Spain. Read the rest

Boing Boing proudly welcomes our newest sponsor, Toothstars!

Sure draining the blood from an innocent is a heck of a lot of fun, but it really stains your teeth. If you want to stalk prey on the streets of a major metropolitan center you will need to hide the demon that lives inside you by keeping your smile pearly white. You need Toothstars!

Toothstars has a massive library of information that can help whiten and brighten any smile, even yours you blood sucking, awful monster. Coffee? Nicotine? O+? Toothstars has a solution, and chances are it will work. There is an entire blog of tips, tricks and secret methods to hide even the most outward signs of your dark secret. Try all their DIY tooth whitening, teeth cleaning, and dental hygiene recommendations. You can also read detailed reviews of dental hygiene and tooth care tools, like water picks, sonic tooth brushes and floss! There is nothing these Toothstars won't try!

You have already tried all of those suggestions? Your teeth are permanently the muddy brown of a vein puncturing immortal? Guess what? The super stars at Toothstars have created an incredible directory of licensed and certified dental care professionals. Read reviews, consider locations and find a doctor that suits your needs. While they do not specifically indicate which dentists happily service the undead, simply use your supernatural eye sight to read between the lines.

Additionally, Toothstars employs a huge team of experts to review and rate dental care products. Which floss is flossiest? Read the rest

Boing Boing proudly welcomes our new sponsor, LIWTS!

One of the positive trends sweeping the nation appears to be marijuana legalization! Regardless how you feel about the state of the world, it is nice that marijuana is becoming more and more available to help you cope with whatever ails you.

Marijuana, THC and CBD are fast becoming recognized as very effective in treating pain, appetite, anxiety, insomnia and even cancer, but there is a lot of quackery out there. Where do you look? Who do you trust? Who really knows what is what in the world of weed?

LIWTS is looking to become your source for news, reviews and stories about this budding new world!

Full of reviews of the latest, and greatest, vaporizers, strains, oils, edibles and awesome snacks, Legalize It We Think So has dedicated itself to being the go-to site for your marijuana and THC related content.  There are forums for discussion and advice, a head shop full of toys and tools, and news about legalization efforts around the world. A quick glance at the entertainment sections shows everything from specialty weed to enhance female orgasms, to which cheese grants you a pot-like high. LIWTS covers all the bases.

You can also use their strain database to find out more about that flower you wanted to grow, or if that indication will put you out instead of just make the couch really comfortable.

Unlike myriad other MMJ/THC sites, LIWTS treats their audience as marijuana enthusiasts who want to be informed, rather than raging stoners thrilled every time someone flies a cannabis leaf flag! Read the rest

Boing Boing proudly welcomes our new sponsor Eversign: Legally binding electronic signatures at work, at home or on the go!

Taking your company paperless is a wonderful goal, but without a fantastic electronic signature system you will create problems faster than you solve them. Enter Eversign!

Eversign is a full-suite electronic document management system non-pariel! Beyond merely allowing you to identify signature blocks on documents, and securely send documents to another signing party, Eversign adds a world of features and integration. So many features you'll be kinda shocked this is just a document signing service!

Eversign easily manages any document. From simple agreements for your first born to complex documents with long lists of signators. Documents can be signed serially, or in parallel, enabling folks to sign in a precise order if desired, just like the Lesser Key of Solomon requires.

Documents can be signed with any device, and in-person signing options also exist for times when you and a colleague want to mutually execute a document in the field! The second your client agrees to that crazy idea? Get them to sign on your phone right there! The only signing option Eversign seems to lack is blood.

Eversign also allows users to type, upload, or draw their thoroughly authenticated and unique digital signatures. Forget cursive! Want to use a sketch of your favorite 70s Saturday morning cartoon character superimposed with an image of the devil? That is your legally binding signature now, baby!

Eversign is also packed with conveniences like document editing, when you need to correct a last minute mistake, contact management and document management databases. Read the rest

Happy Mutants! All hail Boing Boing’s new sponsor Herbtools!

Ever wonder why J. R. "Bob" Dobbs wears that perpetual smile? It's the habifropzipulops mariphasa lupina in his pipe. When smoked, this remarkable herb, which grows on yeti droppings in Tibet, succeeds where science fails: removing the terror of the The Gods.

When that fear grabs you, grab a bong o' 'frop, my friend!

Bikini bongs not only offer a shortcut to Slack, they look great too! Let other natty psychonauts know you’re flying the flag of cognitive freedom, right in the middle of your very own living room, cell, or bathysphere on the floor of the Marianas Trench! Bongs are great for attracting fellow Discordians, Happy Mutants, and SubGenii, as well as scaring off the pinks and gorps.

Some find power in their bong! Legend has it that Yog-Sothoth, his own bad self, hit the 'frop from a bong fashioned from a yeti skull.

Well mannered 'frop-heads know that being cool is the rule! Revel in your Slack. Embody it. Feel the vibrations of the universe as you vigorously bubble fumes of Klaatu himself though the wondrous head of a grey overlord! Remember your youth, or your future, with a Bikini bong! I know I left mine around here some place...

Remember, with frop as with everything: too much is always better than not enough!

Herbtools has amazing bongs! Read the rest

A guide to the charities we support in our own annual giving.

Enjoy the third and final part of this year's gift guide: toys! Also included are everything else that doesn't quite fit into our picks among the books and gadgets to enchant and enwonderize us in 2016. What cool and weird objects of fascination did you find this year?

Mark Frauenfelder

Makey MakeyIt’s easier to understand what Makey Makey is by watching this video of it in action than by describing it, but I’ll give it a shot. Makey Makey is a printed circuit board that you connect to any computer with a USB cable (included). You don’t need to install any software. Your computer thinks Makey Makey is a keyboard. And it is a keyboard of sorts. But it doesn’t use standard keys. Instead, you connect wires from Makey Makey to anything that conducts electricity: a piece of fruit, a bowl of water, a cup of soup, a scrap of aluminum foil, blobs of Play-Doh. When you touch the object with your finger, your computer will think you are pressing a key on a standard keyboard. You can assign the object to be a spacebar key, an arrow key, or a letter key. And you can connect several objects to Makey Makey at the same time, so that you can create game controllers, musical interfaces, and other button-controlled devices.

It might not sound like much fun, but the possibilities are endless, and Makey Makey’s ease of use encourages quick-and-dirty experimentation. My 12-year-old was instantly transfixed by Makey Makey and she started making all sorts of things with it, including a drum machine triggered by apple slices, and a game controller out of a cardboard box and bits of foil. Read the rest

A staggering array of gadgetry gets posted to Boing Boing every year, which makes picking just some of the stuff seem like a big job. But it's easy when you just ask yourself: what made our lives better? What looks fun? Here's a few dozen tech toys that generated laughs, light and lovely smoothies.

Most of the links here include Amazon Affiliate codes; this helps us make ends meet at Boing Boing, the world's greatest neurozine. Don't miss our favorite books and toys from 2016, too Read the rest

When we got to rounding up our favorite books for our annual Gift Guide, we found that there were simply too many this time to throw in the Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukah/Yule/Solstice/Nonspecific Winter Celebration/New Year/Chalica hopper along with the tech and toys.

It's almost as if 2016 made the traditional way of learning more about our world — and of sharing dreams of other worlds — somehow more enticing.

Here's 65 of the best, then, from fairy-tales to furious politics, from the comic to the catastrophic, all waiting for you to turn the page.

Most of the links here include Amazon Affiliate codes; this helps us make ends meet at Boing Boing, the world's greatest neurozine. Don't miss this year's guides to Gadgets and toys too! Read the rest

Boing Boing is sponsored in part by Meh.

Our sponsor Meh is a daily deals site that deals in a wide range of gadgets, gizmos, geegaws, widgets, stuff, gear, goods, and, of course, things. Recently, they sent me a big box of items they've previously sold for me to "review." But before I even got a chance to open the package, my ten-year-old son had torn into it, tried out each item (for at least one minute), and formed strong opinions that I will now share with you. -dp

Ion Audio Vinyl Motion Portable Suitcase Turntable: "I collect vinyl, and I can tell you that as a rule, new turntables that sell for less than $100 are crap. This one is surprisingly much better than the crappy ones that most people end up buying. The Ion turntable is actually a great bang for your buck, especially if you're playing $1 bin records that you don't care too much about."

Evriholder Beer Chill'R Mug: "I don't drink beer, but even if I did... this thing is stupid."

Haan HandiPro HS-22 Hand Held Steam Cleaner: "I guess this could be useful for cleaning up cat pee from rugs and other messes. But it would be better modded into a Ghostbusters Proton Pack for Halloween."

Banana Boat Rechargeable Wireless Floating Sound System: "This waterproof bluetooth speaker sounds good, but unfortunately we don't have a pool. I am listening to the new Green Day album in the bathtub though. So that's pretty cool."

"Overall, this was an OK haul.

Read the rest

Boing Boing has teamed up with MorningSave to offer this deeply discounted collection of House of Marley watches!

House of Marley is committed to building superior, eco-friendly products, and every sale supports the Marley family's charitable organization, 1Love.

I really like the wood accents on these watches!

Boing Boing & MorningSave's House of Marley watch collection Read the rest

Boing Boing is proudly sponsored in part by Meh.

Our sponsor Meh is a cool daily deals site that doesn't over-promise, but delivers thoughtfully curated mostly cheap off-brand gadgets.

Read the rest

Boing Boing proudly welcomes our sponsor, Meh.

I was completely unprepared for how disappointed I was going to be with my random box of crap from Meh.

The folks at Meh told me I didn't have to like anything they sent. Dave told me over and over, it is ok if we hate the stuff. Having tried out most of what they sent me, I can safely say I was entertained, then frustrated, scared, confused, frustrated again, kinda bored and slightly angry. A box of crap indeed!

When I opened the cardboard box, I still thought maybe I'd get something really great. I didn't think this was impossible! I'd seen some items listed that I was sure would be a lot of fun to play with. Right on top, first thing out of the box was something I thought would be great: the CAP Clip-A-Phone!

This looked like a lot of fun! A SmartPhone mount for the brim of a baseball cap? What could go wrong? I grabbed an old hat, some hair clips and my Great Pyrenees. Amazing fun, right? I envisioned a hilarious Dog's Eye view of the world revealed through a camera clipped to my best friend's head. Luckily I didn't destroy my phone.

CAP turns your hat into an unbalanced weight dangling just above your face. There is no way a dog, even with lots of hair clips, and a bandana tied over his head holding it on, could walk with it on. Putting the hat on my 9 year old daughter allowed my phone to drop about 3 1/2 feet to the ground, luckily, the hat and clip protected it from taking the brunt of the fall. Read the rest

We've come together with our pals at Morningsave to offer you a couple neat gadgets! All three were things we collectively thought were fun to play with, and that you might like! Check them out...

First up, for only $39, we've got the Ion Audio Vinyl Motion Portable Turntable. This portable record player comes in a suitcase, just like that first record player you got 40 years ago. Unlike the tinny sounding beast of yesteryear, this guy comes with both RCA and USB outputs! Readers with an eye to the future will encode their vinyl as MP3s!

Next we've got the Nabi Look HD action camera. Unlike more expensive models, at 5 to 10x the price, this camera is cheap. $35 cheap. If you want a camera that'll record 1080p video, in an underwater housing, that you don't mind losing or destroying, this is the camera for you! While the Nabi Look outputs to microSD, and has a bunch of other features, mostly what this camera is notable for is not being valuable. Opens up a lot of possibilities in the world of action cameras, doesn't it?

I was excited to see some photos taken with the Cheerson CX-10C Video Cam Quadcopter. I am still waiting. Thus far I can barely get the thing to hover without careening into a wall. The copter does come with a 2GB microSD card and certainly implies that a competent pilot could capture some interesting shots. Maybe you'll have better luck. I'd stick with the record player. Read the rest

Boing Boing very proudly welcomes our new sponsor, Meh.

Meh is a daily deals site that often struggles to explain what the products they are selling are, what these gadgets do, or why you might possibly like them. They handle this the same way I approached college: if you can't offer useful information, make up something that sounds oddly plausible. You'll marvel at the creativity and sheer bullshit that goes into drafting the descriptive copy for the goodies they offer the world.

Sometimes you'll find a gem. Occasionally, you find something kinda useful in a limited, and likely to break soon kinda way, for an incredible price! Those are special Meh moments. Treasure them.

Meh is about fun! That's why they are sending each one of us at Boing Boing a random box of of crap that was literally laying around their warehouse. They really don't care what we think of the stuff, they hope we find something fun, or at least destructive, to do with it. We're not supposed to tell you how perfect it is. Every week or so this summer, one Boinger after another will receive a mystery Meh box and will share their wonder, bemusement, or disappointment, at what arrives. We may be weird, but to us this sounds very fun.

This video was made during the shoot for our Virgin America seat-back entertainment channel. If you fly Virgin America, watch Boing Boing TV on Channel 10 in the television channel selections. We had a lot of fun making it! Read the rest